Why the Intel Mac Mini Disappoints
I had been thinking I might spring for one of the Intel Mac Mini’s; but after looking at it for a few days, I have to say I’m disappointed with this offering.
I have been looking forward to the Mac Mini as the home theater hub we would incorporate; but in its figuring of the home entertainment equation, Apple has missed the boat in a rather important area. In the Apple mind, “home entertainment” is being viewed as the ability to view photos, videos, and music all over the house. I agree. But what about GAMES? In my mind, while I don’t play a lot of games very often, when you talk to me about doing things with home entertainment systems, you must include games. After all, the idea is to build an entertainment hub; and anyone who thinks computer games (or flight simulations and games in my case) aren’t part of that picture hasn’t been paying close attention.
The choice of the Intel GMA950 video graphics chipset and its use of shared memory can be expected to yield poor gaming performance and drag down the overall performance of the OS. Apple’s own notes say that the chip will use up to 80MB of your RAM for video processing, meaning that OSX only has 432MB of RAM available for itself and its remaining applications. The ExtremeTech website characterized the GMA950 as a slouch. In effect, even if you buy the Dual Core model of the Mini, you’re not going to see the performance you would hope for since the dual core set will be sometimes choked by GMA950 performance. If Apple truly wants to gain entry into my living room, it’s going to have to address graphics performance in future versions of the Mini. That means a stronger GPU chip and additional and separate video memory.
The second bad choice for the Mini is the inclusion of only 5400 rpm hard drives, even if they are now Serial ATA versus Parallel. Unlike the options for the MacBook Pro, a 7200 rpm drive is not even available for the Mini. You’re not going to get consistent and decent DV playback with a 5400 rpm drive, much less anything in the High Definition category, a card Apple has been playing for a while. Apple has to incorporate 7200 rpm drives in the Mini as well as its notebook lines if they want to be taken seriously about doing more and more with video, in any of its forms, on these machines.
Lastly, I have to say that the higher price point for this Mini only made sense when I could use it as a computer and an entertainment center. I had thought I would buy one of these and use it as my Intel-powered “test and transition” computer and move it over to being an entertainment center once I moved on either to a MacBook Pro or an Intel-powered iMac or PowerMac as my main computer. Equipping it the way I wanted, a dual core Mini with 1GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive (albeit a 5400 rpm drive) would cost $949. That’s too high. For $250 more, I can buy a 17 inch dual-core iMac with only 512MB if Ram but a 160 GB hard drive and an internal iSight camera. The price differential would kick up another $100 or so to take the iMac to 1GB of RAM; but for my additional $350 I would get a 17 inch LCD, a bigger hard drive, and an iSight camera. In my mind, that makes the 17 inch iMac a better value and blew what thoughts I had of buying a Mini right out the window.
I have been looking forward to the Mac Mini as the home theater hub we would incorporate; but in its figuring of the home entertainment equation, Apple has missed the boat in a rather important area. In the Apple mind, “home entertainment” is being viewed as the ability to view photos, videos, and music all over the house. I agree. But what about GAMES? In my mind, while I don’t play a lot of games very often, when you talk to me about doing things with home entertainment systems, you must include games. After all, the idea is to build an entertainment hub; and anyone who thinks computer games (or flight simulations and games in my case) aren’t part of that picture hasn’t been paying close attention.
The choice of the Intel GMA950 video graphics chipset and its use of shared memory can be expected to yield poor gaming performance and drag down the overall performance of the OS. Apple’s own notes say that the chip will use up to 80MB of your RAM for video processing, meaning that OSX only has 432MB of RAM available for itself and its remaining applications. The ExtremeTech website characterized the GMA950 as a slouch. In effect, even if you buy the Dual Core model of the Mini, you’re not going to see the performance you would hope for since the dual core set will be sometimes choked by GMA950 performance. If Apple truly wants to gain entry into my living room, it’s going to have to address graphics performance in future versions of the Mini. That means a stronger GPU chip and additional and separate video memory.
The second bad choice for the Mini is the inclusion of only 5400 rpm hard drives, even if they are now Serial ATA versus Parallel. Unlike the options for the MacBook Pro, a 7200 rpm drive is not even available for the Mini. You’re not going to get consistent and decent DV playback with a 5400 rpm drive, much less anything in the High Definition category, a card Apple has been playing for a while. Apple has to incorporate 7200 rpm drives in the Mini as well as its notebook lines if they want to be taken seriously about doing more and more with video, in any of its forms, on these machines.
Lastly, I have to say that the higher price point for this Mini only made sense when I could use it as a computer and an entertainment center. I had thought I would buy one of these and use it as my Intel-powered “test and transition” computer and move it over to being an entertainment center once I moved on either to a MacBook Pro or an Intel-powered iMac or PowerMac as my main computer. Equipping it the way I wanted, a dual core Mini with 1GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive (albeit a 5400 rpm drive) would cost $949. That’s too high. For $250 more, I can buy a 17 inch dual-core iMac with only 512MB if Ram but a 160 GB hard drive and an internal iSight camera. The price differential would kick up another $100 or so to take the iMac to 1GB of RAM; but for my additional $350 I would get a 17 inch LCD, a bigger hard drive, and an iSight camera. In my mind, that makes the 17 inch iMac a better value and blew what thoughts I had of buying a Mini right out the window.
posted by Andy Foster at
9:36 PM
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